We Are Free

By now, I should no longer be surprised or amazed at the parallels and intersections I see between my faith – Christianity – and my diet, veganism.  Now, settle down Christian brothers and sisters, I know Christianity isn’t veganism and that no laws or rules exist for the Christian where food is concerned.  We are indeed free.

And that is exactly the point I wish to make.  I can’t say exactly why one person, Christian or otherwise, chooses to eat one way and someone else another.  Each life is a complex, unique story wherein one finds an equally complex if not subtler subplot around food and the act of eating.  Think now of the individual – runaway or refugee – gleaning scraps from a garbage can or dump for survival and now, the one dining in comfort, pleasure and good company in a restaurant downtown: extremes to be sure, but revealing of humanity’s profoundly complex relationship with food.  There are 6.9 billion of us human creatures on earth and each of us has our own unique story about food and who can really say whose story is right or wrong?  Can the well-fed vegan animal rights activist condemn the impoverished Andean farmer who eats not only his goat’s milk and cheese but also the goat because the alternative is starvation?  Can the farmer condemn the vegan whose motive is compassion, mercy and care for sentient creatures?

It seems we are always left struggling to balance grace and truth, as I pointed out in my last post (Fullness of Truth and Grace), and in that struggle miss perhaps the single most important truth in scripture which is this:  Jesus came to make ALL THINGS new.  The summary of the whole word of God is that Jesus came to tell a new story for all of creation and that story is still being told, in every life, every day and in every way.

C’mon!  That’s really good news!  And it’s exciting!  This is our freedom!  We all have some good stories in our lives, moments and relationships that nurtured us and brought joy.  Well, we are free to keep those stories and continue to rejoice in them.  But the real power and promise of Jesus’ cross is that any story whose plot and/or ending are pain, sadness, guilt, shame, anger, loneliness or despair can now be rewritten.

If we let it….

Look, in the face of the relentless vastness and cold majestic mysteries of this universe we have all felt at some time or another how puny, insignificant, and powerless we truly are.  And yet, we have unfathomed depths of opportunity and tremendous power because we bear the image of our Creator and have the ability to choose.  Free will:  our choice, always.  Therefore, not for nothing does God exhort us to choose life over death in all our choices.  Our choices matter a lot because choosing life makes us His people whereas choosing death makes us His enemies.  In other words, choose life and He can begin to rewrite the stories of your life, give you a new life.  Choose death and that’s what you’ll end up with.

Once upon a time, the Holy Spirit gave us faith and a contrite heart.  In response, we chose to repent of our sins and to put our faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of those sins and the conversion of our hearts from stone to flesh and our souls from death to life.  That was our story of becoming a Christian.  Yet our story only began there for immediately after our conversion the story began of our sanctification and adoption into God’s family as his sons and daughters.

As such, our choices matter now more than ever because through them we become co-creators with God of creation’s new story, which is also our new story.  Our choices, empowered by the Holy Spirit, reveal our own desire that God’s desire be fulfilled where we His children are sanctified and adopted into His eternal family, His kingdom is brought to bear in the earth and all things truly are made new.  Can anyone deny that the Christian’s choice to stop smoking, made in deference to the fact that his body is now a temple of the Holy Spirit, writes a new plotline for health and strength, not only in that life but in the countless lives touched by that one?  What’s more, our new stories are hugely compelling to others who long themselves for a new story and truly are the best tool for fulfilling God’s desire to draw all to Himself.  Saint Francis of Assisi was on to this truth when he noted that Christians should preach the Gospel at all times, using words only when absolutely necessary!

And this is the freedom we have in Christ.  Yes, we have freedom from old, legalistic and burdensome rituals and rules but deliverance is only the beginning.  God never intended we stop there.  If He had, the crucifixion would have sufficed.  We could have stood at the foot of the cross forever and looked on a bloodied, bruised and dead Christ and known our sins forgiven but know nothing of new life.  And yet, new life was God’s plan all along and it was for this He raised Jesus from death so that, like our Savior, we might also be raised.  This is our freedom:  new life, through faith in Christ, the renewing of our hearts by the Holy Spirit and our choices made every day in accordance with God’s command to choose life.

So often, in conversation with Christian brothers and sisters, when the topic of food comes up and I reveal my veganism, the response is “Well, God gave us permission to eat animals.”  This response frustrates me so because it reveals that many of God’s children are still standing at the foot of the cross of salvation and have not noticed the vast beautiful land beyond called sanctification.  Of course God gave us permission to eat animals and because Jesus fulfilled the law we are free to do just that.  But hear Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 10: 22-24 that all things are permissible but not all things are beneficial and know it as an invitation to something deeper than what is or is not permissible.  With permission and taboos are we not back again knee-deep in the rules and regulations of the law?

With his words Paul is telling us that our freedom now lies in discernment, not rules.  He is telling us to grow up to the potential God created in us and is working in us by the Holy Spirit, choosing in accordance with that work and letting nothing master us.

This is what I hope:  that Christians will enjoy the freedoms of the table that Christ purchased for us while also discerning if those freedoms are beneficial, not only to ourselves but to all creation.  Yes, chicken and steak are delicious and enjoyable but is it beneficial to eat them at every meal?  Is it beneficial to eat them at all?  Modern nutritional science and the current epidemic of diet and lifestyle-related illnesses, such as obesity, heart disease, cancer and diabetes, emphatically declare it is not and that if animals are consumed at all it should be with considerable moderation.  Can humans, who were given special stewardship of God’s creation, believe it is beneficial to animals, the land, the rivers, the oceans and the air that 10 billion animals are raised and slaughtered each year in the U.S. alone to feed our appetites for meat and the epicurean pleasure it brings?  More to the point, can Christians  - who should have an even deeper concern for stewarding our Father’s creation, especially the animals personally named by Adam – believe that this is pleasing to Him?

Have our appetites mastered us?  I simply can’t believe that God turns a blind eye to the way we deprive our bodies – His temple! – of good nutrition, exercise and rest, not when Paul exhorts us to honor God with our bodies.  Although this exhortation is given in the context of sexual health I don’t think it’s inappropriate to extend it to all areas of our lives.  God designed creation, including our bodies, to work a certain way and we ignore and thwart that design at our own peril.   I see prayer requests in my inbox all the time for healing and miracles for this or that person who is in the hospital for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and I pray because I know He is able to do all.  Still, I can’t help but wonder what God must think of our prayers when He has already given us the miracle of knowledge about how to live healthfully, and we willfully ignore it, landing ourselves in a desert of illness, praying for miracles and healing.  I wonder why people ask God for what they can give themselves.

Here are some of the miracles that come with exercise and plant-based whole food nutrition (The China Study, Campbell, Ph.D, Dr. T. Collin, 2005-2009 BenBella Books):

• Diabetes can be controlled and in many cases, diabetics can completely eliminate medication.
• Heart disease can be completely reversed.
• The risk for all types of cancer is significantly lower and improves the chances of survival after diagnosis
• Blood cholesterol can be normalized, significantly reducing the risk of stroke, heart disease and hypertension.
• Childhood and adult obesity can be reversed, eliminating the risks of disease that accompany obesity, such as Childhood Onset Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and social stigma.
• Aging and the decline in strength, flexibility and endurance can be slowed.
• Good health and vigor are empowering mentally, emotionally and spiritually and are part of a fulfilling, abundant life.
• A nation that focuses on preventive healthcare and that is healthy will have lower healthcare costs, increased workplace productivity and a more robust GNP.

There have been hundreds of books written about the benefits and miracles of plant-based nutrition for people, animals and the earth so there’s no need for me to go on (look for some of these on the home page of the blog).  The point is that miraculous healing – a new story for our bodies and our lives and for all of creation – is available to us but we refuse ourselves this very compassion, which comes from God.

So often I hear people say Jesus was a model of compassion and mercy and as His disciples we must follow His example.  But reading the gospels one sees clearly that mercy and compassion were not simply attitudes or intellectual stances that Jesus assumed towards other people and things.  They are part of the His divine essence and the very heart of His purpose here on earth.   Jesus lived compassionately and mercifully because that’s who He was.  And they cost Him dearly for it was mercy and compassion for us that laid Him on the cross and led Him to death.  The lesson? True compassion and mercy will cost you something; perhaps even something that matters, a lot.

Is this the reason we will not have compassion and mercy on ourselves, on others and on creation?  I think it is.  We choose to cling to our old stories because the new ones will require something of us.  It will cost us, and dearly.  We will have to yield up our bodies, our pleasures and comforts, our crutches and self-deceptions, our pride, our sins and addictions, our relationships, our dreams, notions and ideas, our culture, our economy and money, our creativity, our past, present and future, our love and even our pain and tragedies, which though torturous are familiar and somehow edifying.  It’s plain that a new story will cost us our lives.  With Christ we are crucified….the end?

But as we all know crucifixion is NOT how the story ends!  We are not left standing at the foot of the cross gazing upon a dead Jesus on a bloody cross, crying over what’s been lost or taken.   Rather, the resurrected Christ Himself draws our gaze beyond the cross to the wild, beautiful land of our own resurrection, sanctification and glorification.  Yes, we lay down our lives, but we get true abundant ones in return.

The cross of Christ is the most astounding thing that has ever happened.  Through it, He has made all things new.  There are no more rules and regulations, only God’s glorious will to be done and new stories to be written: our new stories.  We are free to choose now how to live.  Will we choose life or will we choose death?

I exhort you today to choose life in every part of your life, particularly at your table.  Honor your Father by honoring and caring for your body:  eat a plant-based whole food diet and exercise every day.  Honor your Savior by surrendering your life to His mercy and compassion – let Him give you a new story –  and by being yourself merciful and compassionate to all living things,human and animal.

And remember, we are FREE.

The Fullness of Grace and Truth

Well, I’m back.  It’s been a year since I’ve last posted but better late than never, right?  I hope you’ll forgive me.  The last 18 months have been a roller coaster ride that has finally landed me and my devoted better half in Atlanta starting all over.  A nice, new clean slate – gotta like that!  And I do like it, quite a bit as it turns out.  I’m finding the Atlanta metro area to be quite beautiful and warm, the people welcoming and gracious, and I like that there’s a Whole Foods and a whole slew of other essentials only 15 minutes away as opposed to the requisite 45 minutes to get anywhere from East Haddam, CT.  That’s more time on my hands to do things I like doing much more than driving, posting on my blog being one of them.  Did I also mention it’s WARM?

I want to write today about grace and truth especially where veganism is concerned.  I recently heard a teaching by Pastor Andy Stanley of Northpoint Community Church (Northpoint) where we’ve been attending since our arrival in Atlanta.  He was teaching about how the first church almost went astray over the very thing that we seem to still be struggling with today:  Who gets to be part of the “ecclesia”, the gathering?  What do you have to do or not do to get in?  When are we good enough to join?  How cleaned up must our lives be?  You can read the story in Acts, the book right after the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John but the synopsis is something like this.  After the resurrection of Christ and the testimony of eye witnesses to such, the city of Jerusalem is turned on its head politically, socially and religiously as thousands of people, including many of the Pharisees who put Jesus to death on the cross, profess belief in this Christ and The Way is born.  The upheaval results in hardcore persecution of these new believers from the temple and the Roman courts and one of the original disciples, Stephen, is martyred by Saul.  Now Saul was the creme de la creme of the Jewish authorities, highly learned in the law and as righteous a Jew could be found in the city.  He was also a Roman citizen which gave him a variety of privileges and additional authority.  He personally assumed the leadership of the systematic persecution of the followers of Christ and with a particularly murderous intent.  And then, Saul meets the resurrected Jesus on a road, is struck blind, and humbled and helpless, is lead to a believer’s house where he is healed and converts to The Way.  At this point in the story he becomes known as Paul, and our great Apostle is born with the specific God-given purpose of bringing the Good News to the gentiles.  As such he sets out after some time to preach the gospel and succeeds in establishing many small ecclesias, or gatherings, in the Mediterranean.

Back in Jerusalem, however, there is some debate going on.  Some of the new believers who are Jewish are saying that before anyone can join the Jesus Club, they have to first join the Moses Club! (Those are pastor’s words but I love them!).  To whit, they must become Jewish before they can become Christian.  Not such a big deal until you understand that to become Jewish you have to learn and obey not only the 10 Commandments but the additional 613 extension laws that all Jews must learn as part of their religion.  And, if you’re a man, you must have a little surgery on a very sensitive and important part of your body, namely, circumcision.  Now, Paul hears about this and gets worried because he has not been telling new believers this, only that they must have faith in Christ’s work on the cross to be accepted into the ecclesia.  In other words, they have a wee doctrinal difference that has the potential to split and destroy The Way before it even gets off the ground.

Sound familiar?  It looks like there really is nothing new under the sun and the things that have divided the Ecclesia, that is to say the Church, over these long millenia are the very same things that almost divided it at the very beginning!  How many of us have stopped attending our church and vowed to never return because of infighting or hypocrisy?  How many people have stayed away from The Way of Jesus because of mixed messages from its leaders?  Just what are the rules of membership, if indeed there are any and why can’t anyone agree on them?  And what happens if we just can’t keep those rules?  Are we out?

Can anyone relate?  I know I can.  I stopped attending church and didn’t go back for over two years for some of those very reasons and my return to church has been a very tentative, dare I even say skeptical, event.  So far, so good, but we’re talking about people here, which means we’re talking about brokenness married to an image of God.  We’re talking about messy, difficult, unsavory stuff.  And I only say that because I know myself!

Well, here’s how they handled it back then and it seems to me it was wisdom because The Way, today known as Christianity, is still around and going stronger than ever.  Paul went down to Jerusalem to inquire about the mixed messages and sort it all out and he met with the leaders, among whom were Peter and John, Jesus’ brother. (On a side note, but one which I find hilarious and compelling, Pastor Andy asks what would Jesus have had to do to convince you he was the Son of God if he was YOUR brother?!)  Some of the Pharisees stood up and advocated for the Moses Club/Jesus Club model of conversion and membership because this made sense to them.  Jesus was after all Jewish and the Messiah, therefore Christianity in their eyes was a natural extension of Judaism so it seemed clear that anyone wishing to be Christian had to first become Jewish by learning the laws and having surgery.  But Peter then stood up and gave testimony to the many gentile conversions he had witnessed, saying that these new gentile believers had professed their faith and received the Holy Spirit and neither knew the law or had been circumcised.  Then John stood up and made his judgement which was that he understood how offensive gentiles were to Jews in their habits and how Jesus had completely upended all the categories in which the Jews had placed other people.  He also pointedly reminded the Jews that although their whole lives from birth had been immersed in learning the law, they still did not always obey the law (witness the sin sacrifice in the temple) and that the law was in fact a burden on their lives and an impediment to faith.  He questioned the wisdom of laying this burden that even they, prepared as they were, could not keep on those who were not in the least prepared, and yet had received the Holy Spirit and were already doing great things in Jesus’ name.  He judged it would be tempting God and fighting the will of God and should not be so.  Rather, he gave two commandments to the gentiles:  don’t offend the Jews with your habits and don’t be sexually immoral.  That’s it.  Six hundred and thirteen down to two.  No laws, no surgery, just faith in Christ, an awareness and consideration for your Jewish Christian brother’s sensitivities and no immoral sex. (I know, I know, that’s a whole other conversation, one which I’m not going to treat here because there are plenty of other people talking about it and they’re much smarter than me on that subject).

So, why can’t the Church get this right here and now?  Why are people leaving or never even coming?  Why is Christianity so confusing?  Andy Stanley thinks it has to do with grace and truth and I agree with him.   The church is always trying to strike a balance between them but we never read in scripture that Jesus struck a balance between the two.  On the contrary, we know from John that Jesus was the fullness of truth and grace.  In other words, grace and truth were found to be fully embodied, together, in Christ.  He was fully gracious but never wavered from the truth of reality, God’s Kingdom and His identity and purpose.  This is why we find him having dinner with tax collectors and prostitutes in one moment, fully engaged in the frightful sinful messiness that is humanity, and forgiving those sins with gentle admonishments to “Go, and sin no more” in the next.

Ecclesia must do the same.  With Christianity there is an undeniable moral imperative.  The Ten Commandments, the law, were given by God and our personal and social relational health rises or falls on how well we follow them.  And yet, our salvation is through grace, so while the law must not be poo-pooed, nor must it be a sledgehammer with which we drive God  into people’s hearts and minds.  Is such a thing even possible?

Which brings us finally to the point I wanted to make, or rather, the point I arrived at after hearing this teaching.  Full embodiment of grace and truth is needed not only in the Ecclesia but also in any discussion about veganism, animals and their welfare, or food.  We mustn’t dumb down the truths that stem from the fact that every year in this country 10 billion innocents are systematically abused and slaughtered in the most inhumane ways.  It is a great evil and the source of many other evils such as global warming and pollution, ecological degradation, poverty, hunger, and the slow chronic wasting away of human life.  This kind of suffering, abuse, greed, willful ignorance and depravity has the power to illicit in me and my fellow vegans and animal activists the most righteous of angers that can easily lead to disdain and judgement.  Understandable, but it closes doors and hearts.  A purely legalistic approach risks driving away people who may be genuinely curious or open to learning and/or changing how they think and undermines not only the progress we’ve already made, but the new chances of making a real life-giving difference in the lives of both people and animals.

Grace on the other hand will empathize with the very real emotional, psychological, spiritual, social and cultural issues surrounding profound change of any kind.  It understands that change is difficult and most importantly, always encourages, especially in the face of failure.  Grace forgives, picks up, dusts off and puts back in the saddle.  Grace stays with the messy struggles of the human heart and brings chance after chance to work out salvation and choose life.

I’d like to thank Pastor Andy Stanley for this teaching.  It helped give shape and form to some of my own musings and ideas about these things and set my feet on very solid ground with regards to how I write about the matters close to my heart and how my choices impact the lives of those around me for better or worse.  You know, Jesus told us that the truth would set us free but it occurs to me that it is grace that lead us to truth and then back round again to grace.   And like the Father, Son & Holy Spirit, truth and grace are just different faces of the same thing, which is Love.

Put up Your Dukes

On my drive into work today a song popped into my head.  It’s a song I’ve been singing for years with my family although I don’t know who first wrote or recorded it.  The version I know is by Emmylou Harris and it’s a song about silence in the midst of a dying love:

Beneath still waters
There’s a strong undertow
The surface won’t tell you
What the deep waters know

Darling, I’m saying
I know something’s wrong
Beneath still waters
Your love has gone

This is a song about two particular lovers but I think it’s also a song about all lovers, about all of us.  God’s word tells us that the deepest human need is to love and be loved and I think we could all agree that this is our common experience in life.  When we are loving and being loved we are on the top of the world.  When we feel unloved or are unloving we inhabit a dark valley.

So, I wonder if love is our deepest need and the key to a joyful, meaningful life, why do we stand by silently while love dies?  Why do we pretend the waters are still when underneath they rage and flood and threaten to sweep us away?  Why do we not plunge the knowledge the deep waters hold?  Why do we not SAY something is wrong?  And why do we not fight for Love?

These questions are particularly relevant to Christians because we worship Love Himself, and profess discipleship and service to the Way, the Life and the Truth, who is Jesus;  Jesus, who cared for the poor, the abandoned, the marginalized, the oppressed, the abused, the forgotten; Jesus who loved the tax collector, the prostitute, the drug addict, the adulterer, the thief, the proud, the murderer, the swindler, the liar, the selfish, the rude and the careless; Jesus, who always probed the deeper waters and refused to let us be content with living on the easy smooth surface; Jesus, who said something is wrong and gave His life to expose it and redeem it.

I wonder if we really believe the resurrection is true because I can’t help think that if we did, somehow our lives would reflect more of His life.  That somehow our lives would be more alive, more passionate, more sacrificial, more abundant, more peaceful and more beautiful.  What does it feel like to rise from the dead and have a new chance at life?  I’d give a lot – I can’t say anything, my faith and trust are not that strong – to experience the universe with a resurrected mind, spirit and body.  Please don’t get me wrong; I’m leveling this question/criticism equally at myself.  The areas where I fail to live what I say I believe are so numerous they defy counting. I really don’t know what I don’t know, and it’s why the gospel is so compelling to me.  Because of Jesus, my sin and ignorance of my sin are non de facto, in addition to which I have everlasting life.  Such a deal!

Nevertheless, I can’t help but think that we take this deal too much for granted.  Just because we have everything in the universe as our inheritance through and with the grace of God doesn’t mean we don’t have a responsibility to that grace.  I think that responsibility is what God is talking about when He tells us to be holy because He is holy.  We may never ever, no matter how hard we try, become fully worthy of God’s love and grace but it somehow seems appropriate in the face of such a wonderful bestowment that we should do everything we can to prove God right and become the kind of people He already thinks we are.  We always talk about our faith in God, but I think God has tremendous faith in us!

How many of us have been inspired to do or be something that we never thought we could do or be because someone who loved us believed in us?  That faith changes everything, doesn’t it?  What would it mean in your life to hear God say to you every day:  “I know you can do it.  I believe in you.  You’re my child, I love you, and I know what you are capable of.  Now get up and try again.  I know it’s hard but you can do it.  I know it hurts but it will be worth it.  I’m so proud of you.  I love you.”?  These are the things God said to Jesus that enabled Him to fight for Love by enduring the cross and the things He is saying to us enabling us to pick up our cross, follow Jesus and fight for Love.  Deep waters indeed…

Since this is a blog about food  - which is to say it’s about vegetables, animals, plants, soil, fertilizer, worms, bacteria, fungus, gardens, farms, farmers, tables, china, linens, picnics, grills, cooking, kitchens, recipes, poverty, policy, drought, justice, health, disease, obesity, hunger, fasting, chefs, restaurants, cafes, schools, institutes, mothers, fathers, children, families, sacrifice, survival, culture, taste, smell, sound, beauty, fun, joy, laughter, feasting, parties, abundance, scarcity, good memories, stories, life – we must consider food in the light of our call to holiness and in the context of God’s faith in us.

Have we picked up our food cross and are we fighting for Love there?  If not, how can we do so?  Does it mean eating more healthfully?  How do we more fully model compassion and mercy at the table or in our community?  Maybe it means eating only plants, as it does for me.  Can you fight for love by cultivating hospitality and fellowship? Or perhaps simply by eating more often with your own family or a romantic dinner with your spouse?  Does it mean learning to cook and then taking the time to cook and possibly sacrificing something (the dance/music/sports/ TV/computer/what have you) in order to do that?   Do you simply need to slow down and enjoy your food, savor and appreciate its goodness and beauty?  Does it mean giving food to those who don’t have it?  Or possibly simply thinking about these things and becoming informed about them?  Can you grown your own vegetable garden or herb garden?  Volunteer at a soup kitchen, meals on wheels or an animal sanctuary?  Make a donation to the Humane Society, Farm Sanctuary, Bread for Life or your local food bank or shelter?  Can you shop at a farmer’s market or somehow support small and local agriculture?Write a letter to your political leaders and express your concern about food deserts, the degradation of our land and waters through intensive agricultural practices, or the epidemics of childhood obesity and diabetes?

There are as many ways to fight for Love with our food as there are foods to eat.  And I’d like to suggest from my own experience and from Christ’s example that the deeper we go, the more sacrificial and difficult the battles we choose, the greater the Love we give and receive, the more like Him – the more holier – we become.  We mustn’t be intimidated by the vastness of the battlefield.  We must simply pick up our weapons of choice and wield them with confidence and faith, knowing our Father is right behind us, cheering us on and oh so proud of who we are becoming as we bring His Love and Grace – His will – to bear in our lives and on this earth.

Therefore, because we are called to do so, let us dive beneath still waters and plunge the knowledge of the deep with regards to all these things.  Let us fight for Love, become holier day by day, moment by moment, bite by bite so as to honor our Father, make Him proud and be who He thinks we can be.

Put up your dukes!

Choose You Today….

I’m not sure exactly how to begin or proceed with this post.  I’m a pretty open-hearted soul – I cherish honesty and truth – but life has taught me that can be a hard road to travel; it’s never wise to throw pearls before swine.  I don’t mean to imply my readers are swine but not everyone will honor one’s heart and some will trample where even angels fear to tread.  Still, what I want to say has to do with life and death, truth and lies, and choices and stems from a very dark place I’ve been lately.  The last 12 months of my life have seen deep trial and equally deep questioning about what this life is really about, the nature of the human heart, suffering, loss, forgiveness, God’s love, presence, will, and, of course, grace.  I’ve been misled, betrayed, disillusioned and lain bare and now that it’s just about over, the acidity of injustice and loss are strong in my mouth, mind and heart.  It’s a bitter pill which I can not abide, but I confess it’s addicting because the rage it engenders empowers me.  It makes me indignant and righteous and I feel strong, a moral powerhouse, ready to teach this world and everyone in it – most especially those who have hurt me – a lesson.  Everything looks pretty black and white right now and I’m confident in what matters and what doesn’t.  I’m just not taking sh** from anyone these days.   But…..

<Heavy sigh> I’m aware that I’m teetering on the edge of a black hole here and I’m conscious of a sense of implosion, of falling in on myself.  The weight is at once terrifying and glorious in its power to impact everything around me.  I’m poised to open doors that should never be opened, speak that which should not be spoken, burn a few bridges and take the chance I won’t need them coming back.  I want to let this thing have its way so my voice – my grief and rage – will finally be heard but I know to feed it is to feed my own destruction, a road I have already been down in my life and one I wish never to travel again.

My own admittedly biased evaluation is that though I strive every day to live a gracious life, very little has been thrown my way lately, from this world anyway, which may be oxymoronic (worldly grace?) and too high an expectation.  But it doesn’t change the fact I’m pissed about it.  I’m wondering why I bother to give the benefit of the doubt or to believe that there’s more than meets the eye.  I really do wonder if it all works together for good for those who love God. These days, the daily news and my daily commute are quite enough to convince me grace and goodness are dead and gone.  My darling, patient husband lovingly exhorts me to “take off my cranky pants” (I, in my cynicism, of course, see an ulterior motive there) but I really have to confess that I’m too weak to do so.  My grief and rage are justified – I really have been taken for a long, torturous ride down the river  - I just don’t know what to do with it all or how to express them in productive and healing ways.  Scripture, and the people who glibly quote it, rings hollow, and the usual panaceas are just the temporary if not entertaining ways they’ve always been of dulling and forgetting the pain of loss and unquenched desire for justice.  I want to pull back but I can’t and I’ve needed someone – GOD – to do it for me.  The fact that as of tonight I was still standing there was just one more thing to be pissed about, a reason to entertain the thought that perhaps I am alone and it’s all just a cruel joke….?

And then came Asparagus and Lemon Grass Risotto.  Well, first came an evening open to whatever I wanted to fill it with, darling husband being en route to Germany and young adult children otherwise occupied with young adult concerns.  I chose yoga (on FitTV, an inept if not sincere effort, born of a desire to DO something other than sit on my ass for my typical two hour round-trip commute followed by another eight hours of sitting on my ass while working) and then I chose to cook dinner.  Usually in these circumstances I would have Cheerios, soy milk and potato chips, but I had some asparagus in the fridge that needed using before it became a science experiment and I’ve gained a recent strong aversion to throwing anything away or taking anything material for granted.  So, after perusing my cookbook library I settled on Asparagus and Lemon Grass Risotto from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Veganomicon.  It was simple, used said asparagus and had the advantage of pairing well with some cheap Chardonnay I had on hand. It also had a little bit of prep which would give me plenty of time to rant and rave in my mind at my enemies for a while (while brandishing my Santoku knife) and tell them a thing or two that would humble them, teach ‘em a lesson and set ‘em on the straight and narrow.  Which I did, and quite handily I might add.  They were all apologizing abjectly, marveling at my wisdom and insight about life, love and righteousness, and we were getting along famously by the time I started adding the broth to the risotto.  Very satisfying.

So, rather than wait for my dinner to finish I decided after such a long drive home and a long lecture I definitely deserved a head start on that glass of wine.  Wine needs to breathe, you know, and I wanted it to go perfectly with my dinner.  I’m a peanut, which means I’m a lightweight and definitely can’t hold my liquor, which also means I get one glass and that’s it.  Therefore, I tend to really nurse my glass of wine, otherwise it goes to my head rather quickly and the food ends up too salty or spicy or whatever, or it just ends.  The lovely thing about this is that all I get with my one glass of wine is really relaxed: no buzz, no stumbling, no idiocy.  Just relaxed.  Quiet.  Peaceful.  Humble.  No anger, no lectures, no lessons, no straight and narrow.  It’s just me, the quiet in the house and this wonderful thing I’m doing with food.

So, I sit down on the couch with my plate in hand and my half glass of wine and I notice my computer, parked on the coffee table, has some program asking to be installed. I look and it’s a program that needs to be installed so I can stream and watch movies on my computer from NetFlix.  Darling husband’s parting gift.  Now, there’s a small subplot here and it goes like this.  We have been streaming the second season of the BBC’s Dr. Who (new series with David Tennant and Billie Piper) on our TV/Playstation 3 from NetFlix and we were watching a two-parter. Episode one is called the Impossible Planet and it’s about this planet that has managed to stay in orbit around a black hole.  An impossibility in TVland and in reality,so there’s your Impossible Planet.  Not only that, there’s a crew stationed on a research facility on this planet and they are studying the black hole and a strong unique signal coming from the core  of the planet, which they think is the key to the planet’s ability to stay in orbit and to which they are drilling in order to further investigate.  The crew is served by this supposed natural “slave” race called the Ud who were just there on the planet and do their bidding with nary a complaint or desire for freedom from their servitude.  It’s all very strange and Dr. Who and his sidekick Rose show up just as the drill reaches the core of the planet.  No sooner do they find out where they are and what’s going on than all hell literally begins to break loose on this space station because it turns out the Ud are really the servants of the Beast, whose pit the drill has just reached and who has unbeknownst to the others possessed the mind and body of one of the crew members, the guy who is worried and scared all the time, the ultimate goal being escape from the pit he was imprisoned in before space and time.  Hmmmm…rings familiar.

Anyway,  this is a thrilling and captivating show and episode one ends just as the drill reaches the core and the Dr. has gone down with one of the scientists to see what’s there.  They find the ruins of a temple 10 miles deep in the center of this planet, the centerpiece of which is a circular pit covered with stones marked with ancient runes and there it ends as the beast possesses the crew member and the Ud begin to rebel and kill off the crew according to their master’s orders.  Naturally, we want to watch episode two title The Satan Pit but for some reason – Providence? – it won’t load and we can’t watch.  Eternal cliffhanger.  Bummer.

So, this is 4 weeks ago and as I sit down with plate of risotto and wine glass I realize darling husband has given me the ability to stream the second episode on my computer.  The question is: do I or don’t I?  I had planned to enjoy my dinner in silence, perhaps read a bit, or do a bit of surfing.  TV was definitely not in the plan, but now I’m intrigued.  So before I push play, I say to God the first thing I’ve really said to Him in a long time: “Well, here I am with this beautiful plate of food that you’ve provided today in spite of my having been a raging bitch, a malcontent and a maniac on the highway, so thank you.  I’m sorry I’m not more grateful or gracious.  I wish I were but I have so much anger and hurt in me that I just can’t muster it and I’m too tired and pissed off to fake it, which is stupid anyway, so I’m not sorry in that sense.  I don’t know what to do with all this.  I don’t want to be like this but I just don’t know how to fight it or how to step back from the edge.  You’re going to have to do it:  pull me back, save me.   But, I think this risotto is going to taste really good and I’m glad about that.”

That’s what I said.  I shed a few tears and then I hit play and got blown away by episode two.  The BBC and God directed this episode just for me, they just forgot to put the dedication in the credits.  The Ud are out of control and electrifying any crew member they encounter.  The Dr. and the scientist are stranded at the center of the planet 10 miles down from station, the cable on their lift having been cut, and the pit has opened.  The power is down, people are dead or dying and hope and grace are nowhere to be found.  The voice of the Beast rings out over the intercom.  He’s in control.  He knows each of the crews’ failures, weaknesses and fears and pushes those buttons one by one, raining down fear, chaos and death with his accusations and scorn.  They listen and believe and then panic, all rational thought evaporating, despair thickening the air as the Ud begin to break down the doors of their last defensive hold and they prepare to die.

Then Dr. Who, the last of the race of the Time Lords, speaks hope, reason, and truth (with that glorious British accent): “Why do you believe HIM?  He only speaks rage, lies and death.  Here is what I see and know about humans:  a tiny, fragile race out on the fringes of the universe and why?  To explore, to know, to find LIFE!”  And at that word, everyone, including me, came to their senses.  The panic and fear morph into focus and courage at the Dr.’s exhortation and Rose takes command of the situation, the words of her friend (and unconfessed love) having calmed and inspired and reminded her of what’s true about herself and all people:  that we are made in God’s image, that we can choose life over death and truth over lies, and that that choice will make all the difference of whether we and others live or die.  You’ll have to watch the show to see how it ends but I will say that even when death did come, it was noble, sacrificial, honorable and gave others the gift of continued life.  Hmmmm…..

The words “rage, lies and death”, living swords, pierced me, made me cry out as I realized God had answered my sullen yet naked prayer, taken my hand to pull me back from the abyss and would heal me if I only let Him.  Will I let Him?  Yes, I answer, even as I beg for the ability to do so.  My inspirations and revelations are so easily buried and forgotten beneath the weight of the nitty gritty, soul rendering drudgery of every day survival.  It’s the easier thing to believe that hope, goodness and grace are gone because I see evidence of it around me every day and gratitude is surviving 90 minutes on Route 95 on a Friday night or an extra hour of sleep on a Saturday morning or just some peace and quiet without phones, kids or whatever demanding my immediate attention.  How do I possibly open myself to the deep healing ministrations of God in the midst of all this noise, chaos, stress and fear?

I can’t say for sure but I wonder if healing is found in those things themselves and what we believe about them.  So, just what do I believe about my work? Or my commute?  Or my food?  Or sex and  marriage?  Our human beings?  Or loss?  Or grace?  I know that as Israel entered the Promised land God commanded them (and us)  ”..today I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him.” – Deut 30:19.  The choice is before us and one way or another, we will choose.  I just don’t see any way around it.  Where we choose life, we kill death and become His sons and daughters and where we choose death, we kill life and become His enemies, like the beast on the Impossible Planet.

What will we believe today?  What will we choose today?

Let the Conversation Begin

Converse*

-intra.v; To engage in a spoken exchange of thoughts, ideas, or feelings; talk

-adjective; opposite or contrary in direction, action, sequence, etc.; turned around

-noun;something opposite or contrary.

Since embarking on my food journey I have strived to find writings – either contemporary or classic – with a Christian theology on food but to my dismay and complete surprise, I have found very few. (Perhaps I have not looked in the right places?)

This surprises me because I am convinced through my observations of food in the world, personal experience and reading of Scripture that food, although physical in nature, is profoundly spiritual in essence.  It is the primary vehicle for sustaining physical life and for bringing fulfillment and satisfaction to hunger or desire.  The themes, metaphors, parables and teachings around food, hunger and desire in the Bible are rich with meaning and wisdom that promise deeper holiness and abundant life for the believer!  And yet, I hear almost nothing preached from the pulpit, written in books, studied in small groups or proclaimed by the apologist about what, how, why and with whom we eat.  How can this be?  Was food not the tool chosen by Satan to arrange Adam and Eve’s – and all of humanity’s – fall from Grace?  Do we believe this was a coincidence?  Are we today so immured in God’s grace that we are immune from the temptation of our first parents?  Why is no one in the Body of Christ talking about this?

Temptation is often the subtle and pernicious combination of a real need and a possible doubt that creates an inappropriate desire. Being both essential for sustenance of physical life and beautiful and pleasurable in its appearance and taste, food is in its essence a good thing; God Himself created it and proclaimed it to be so.  But if temptation was then and is now subtle it is because our enemy is also subtle, and he is cunning.  He knew then, as he knows now, all that was needed to cause us to turn our hearts from God and to give birth to an inappropriate desire in us was to bring doubt to our minds about God’s true heart and intentions towards us, to artfully sow even the tiniest fear in our own hearts that we were alone in the universe, that God did not really care for us, that in fact, He was holding out on us, using us for His amusement and own selfish purposes.  After all, if God’s intentions and heart were true why the command not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, especially when one could see how wise it would make one?   And so, tempted, we reached for and ate the forbidden and fatal fruit of life on our own terms, never understanding that in winning our coveted independence from God we cut ourselves off from His holy and life-giving presence as well.

And so it goes today.  Our enemy continues to tempt and we, yet doubting God’s provision and heart, fan the flame of inappropriate desire and reach for the deadly food we were never meant to eat.

Yet, through Christ’s work on the cross - through Grace – we are restored to our Father and brought back to life!  Even more, the Holy Spirit dwells within us, our very bodies are His temple.  We have His living Word to teach, discipline, exhort and guide us.  We have LIFE Himself as our greatest treasure to fulfill and satisfy our deepest needs and desires and take away our fear. All things have been, are being and will be made new.   We are the children of Grace.  ”It is done”, was Jesus’ proclamation from the cross, which means all that is left to do is to believe it and live it.  Period.  When we do this, when our lives are bright, shiny and new, free from death, fear and lack, when we walk in Grace,  this life will confront, compel, and convert the world till Jesus’ prophecy, His Kingdom, is finally brought to bear in its full reality on this earth.  God’s will will be done on earth, as in heaven.

This is why there must be a conversation about food in the Church and what it means in the life of a follow of Christ.  We must unwaveringly examine our current stories about food and ask whether they are true, and whether or not they serve the call of Grace on our lives.  Is this essential part of lives free from death, fear and lack?  If so, then we must find ways to cast their graceful net more broadly and gently draw in and love others to Grace.  If they do not, then we must be brave, for we will need to find new stories to tell.

Let the conversation begin……

* converse. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/converse (accessed: April 14, 2010).